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An stream so low you barely got your feet wet separated a settlement for more than four decades. By an accident of topography, the half a hundred locals of Mödlareuth, a small village surrounded by pine forests, meadows and stunning vistas, found themselves at the center of the Cold War conflict. They had the bad luck to cross Bavaria, in the Federal Republic of Germany, and the Thuringian region in the East, a boundary that was demarcated first by a enclosure and then by a partition. US troops nicknamed it Little Berlin.

Preserving History

Months after their own wall was breached, and prior to their state had unified again in 1990, a assembly of villagers set about documenting their past. The work is soon to be completed: on 9 November, the 36th annual anniversary of the fall of the German barrier, the German-German Museum Mödlareuth will open. It was officially opened by the federal president, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, in early October, but the display was not completely finished. Addressing the locals who experienced the old days, Steinmeier remarked: “You were witnesses of an brutal split, which pulled relatives asunder and turned local residents into strangers.”

“You were observers of an cruel division, which tore households asunder and turned neighbors into foreigners.”

Past Background

Right from its establishment in 1810, the hamlet cut across the Royal Bavaria and the Reuss Principality, a royal family most renowned for assigning all its men the name Heinrich and numbering them consecutively by birth order. As Steinmeier told the audience, the quirk never stood in the manner of the residents drinking in the identical tavern, going to the very same place of worship and enrolling their kids to the very same school.

Following WWII Separation

Then came the second world war. Immediately after they appeared, the Soviet forces put up wood stakes by the brook. For a annual period they took over the complete village, establishing their command in a dwelling on the western side, adorning it with a picture of Stalin and a red star. The US forces persuaded them to pull back back over the brook. For a time, residents could still hop over, though as limitations became stricter they were required to present identity papers, although everyone understood who they were, and to go back at after dark.

Increase of Boundary Measures

Subsequently, in 1952, came wire fencing and the official shutting of the border. In 1966, as in Berlin half a decade before, a barrier was constructed, with explosives, vehicle barriers and observation points. The residents could still see each other by climbing hills, but on the eastern side signaling and shouting were prohibited. A female resident was placed on a East German secret police surveillance list for responding “back at you” to a West German villager who said her “prosperous new year”.

Museum Establishment

I was told stories such as these by Robert Lebegern, the director of the museum, who has dedicated a large part of his occupational time building it. Villagers were polled at an early stage about how much structure they desired to maintain. They opted for a portion on the west perimeter, near where one of their own managed to get away in the middle of the night with a ladder, following which the frontier was substantially fortified.

Preserved Structures

Two observation towers are preserved in addition to a series of displays showing the most significant dates in the village’s past. As we walk, Robert Lebegern details the rules: no one could come within 5km of the frontier. Agricultural workers had to obtain particular approval to look after their produce; the spouse could operate the harvesting machine but not the two, in case they attempted to flee. Military personnel stood watch.

Broader Background

The border between the Federal Republic and the German Democratic Republic extended 1,400 kilometers, from the Baltic coast in the northern part to the south in the southern region. Berlin is remembered and honored the greatest, but more than twice as many persons (exceeding 300) died seeking to cross it in countryside regions than in the big city. Robert Lebegern tells me that 95 percent of escape attempts failed.

Village Daily Living

The greater part of Mödlareuth’s villagers were agricultural workers or skilled workers, who adjusted to living in the ambiguous area between a pair of political systems by avoiding attention and caring for their fields. They neither backed the communist regime nor resisted it, Lebegern explains.

Visitors

For sightseers, however, the village became a kind of pilgrimage. Roughly 15,000 visited every year, viewing tools in hand, to gawp – and then swiftly depart. In 1983, the American president, George Bush, was guided by the German defense official.

Twenty five years after reunification, the television series, a broadcast production about a imaginary hamlet resembling Mödlareuth, led to fresh curiosity.

Modern Evolutions

The opening of the recently established museum – with a restaurant, store, film screening area and large car park – is expected to